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Set mainly in the summer of 1969, this spectacular debut follows a 14-year-old girl who falls in with a Manson Family-esque cult. Evie Boyd, an only child whose parents have recently divorced, is bored and yearning to be older. When she spots a group of girls across a northern California park one day, she is immediately taken with a pretty brunette named Suzanne. As fate would have it, Evie’s bike chain breaks a few days later as the girls happen to be driving by on their way to the commune, where they live with a charismatic leader named Russell. Before long, Evie finds herself entrenched in their lifestyle and desperate for Suzanne’s approval. Told from the perspective of Evie as a middle-aged woman, The Girls vividly captures the angst, insecurity, and longing of being a teenage girl. You’ll have a hard time putting this one down as Evie falls deeper and deeper into the murderous cult. Oscar-winning producer Scott Rudin (No Country for Old Men) has already snatched up the movie rights.

Sons and Daughters of Ease and Plenty, by Ramona Ausubel

Photo by Penguin Random House

Labor Day weekend, 1976—Fern and Edgar Keating and their three children are at their Martha’s Vineyard summer home when Fern gets a phone call. The unthinkable has happened: the inheritance they were counting on has dried up. Terrified of their new, penniless reality, Fern and Edgar go their separate ways in Ausubel’s fabulist novel. While Fern finds herself driving cross-country with a giant (yes, an actual giant), Edgar sets sail for Bermuda with his new mistress. And the kids? They’re accidentally left behind to fend for themselves. Ausubel’s imaginative narrative makes for a compelling modern day fairytale.